From: owner-loud-fans-digest@smoe.org (loud-fans-digest) To: loud-fans-digest@smoe.org Subject: loud-fans-digest V3 #21 Reply-To: loud-fans@smoe.org Sender: owner-loud-fans-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-loud-fans-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk loud-fans-digest Wednesday, January 22 2003 Volume 03 : Number 021 Today's Subjects: ----------------- [loud-fans] two things [me@justanotherfuckin.com] Re: [loud-fans] apologies [Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey ] Re: [loud-fans] apologies [Roger Winston ] [loud-fans] Gilmore Girls ["Aaron Milenski" ] Re: [loud-fans] apologies [Aaron Mandel ] Re: [loud-fans] apologies [JRT456@aol.com] Re: [loud-fans] apologies ["Aaron Milenski" ] Re: [loud-fans] was: apologies, now: 2-Steps gets a second chance [Robert] [loud-fans] Joe's albs [dana-boy@juno.com] Re: [loud-fans] Joe's albs [JRT456@aol.com] Re: [loud-fans] apologies [Tim_Pintsch ] [loud-fans] Re: apologies [Steve Holtebeck ] Re: [loud-fans] apologies [Dan Sallitt ] Re: [loud-fans] apologies [Aaron Mandel ] Re: [loud-fans] apologies ["Aaron Milenski" ] Re: [loud-fans] apologies [Gil Ray ] Re: [loud-fans] apologies [JRT456@aol.com] Re: [loud-fans] apologies [Gil Ray ] Re: [loud-fans] apologies [Tim_Pintsch ] Re: [loud-fans] apologies [Dan Sallitt ] Re: [loud-fans] apologies [Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey ] Re: [loud-fans] Gilmore Girls [Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey ] Re: [loud-fans] apologies [Chris Murtland ] Re: [loud-fans] apologies [dana-boy@juno.com] [loud-fans] Re: Alice and Pharoah [Stewart Mason ] Re: [loud-fans] Gilmore Girls [LeftyZ@aol.com] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 00:02:32 -0800 (PST) From: me@justanotherfuckin.com Subject: [loud-fans] two things ONE: media storage http://www.homedecorators.com - click FURNITURE -> MEDIA STORAGE nice cd storage - functional, looks nice. spiffy. TWO: the funniest damn thing i've seen on TV in years anyone familiar with the animated series Home Movies? it's part of Adult Swim. well, i hope you caught tonight's episode. brandon, the would-be director child, got sucked into doing a rock opera movie about Franz Kafka, focusing on his Metamorphosis. i don't think i got a full breath in the whole time. lots of pseudo-glorious almost prog rock moments, with lyrics i'm going to have to track down. absolutely hysterical. completely absurd. off to bed now, brianna ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 08:03:10 -0600 From: Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey Subject: Re: [loud-fans] apologies Quoting Roger Winston : > At Tuesday 1/21/2003 09:23 PM -0600, Jack Lippold wrote: > > >Sorry to cause such a stir with that Harrington link. > > Get over it, people. This is really weird: Jack, I don't know what you're apologizing for. Just because there's lots about Harrington to dislike doesn't mean it wasn't worth seeing, particularly since it's (gasp) on-topic. And Rog, no one actually complained about Jack's posting the link: Jack pre-emptively apologized, and you react as if people were putting him down for having posted it - which no one had done. And surely you're not complaining because people disagreed w/some of what Harrington said, are you? Now everyone stop eating whatever weird food makes you cranky, okay? ..Jeff, from the land of peace and love J e f f r e y N o r m a n The Architectural Dance Society www.uwm.edu/~jenor/ADS.html :: "In two thousand years, they'll still be looking for Elvis - :: this is nothing new," said the priest. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 07:23:03 -0700 From: Roger Winston Subject: Re: [loud-fans] apologies At Wednesday 1/22/2003 01:22 AM -0500, Aaron Mandel wrote: >So what? So homophobia is frickin' lame, that's what. When someone >actually *writes* that one record is worse than another because Michael >Stipe dates men and Scott doesn't, I think he's doing a disservice that >more than outweighs the value of popularizing good (but out-of-print) >music. And, more to the point, he's insulting me and people I care >about... > >I'm not saying you have to care, or to accord these elements of >Harrington's writing the same relative weights -- you clearly don't -- but >don't get indignant that anyone else does. You talk about "political >correctness" as though someone disliking anti-gay and anti-bi comments is >less justifiable than disliking a particular album! I apologize for offending you and anyone else I offended with my tirade. It was an admitted overreaction to what I perceived to be a similar overreaction. I still stand by my general sentiment though. A couple of points: 1) People here seemed more indignant over the over-the-top writing style and use of slang than they did over the whiff of homophobia. 2) I guess I'm just naive, and granted I didn't read the entire list (did anyone?), but I just don't believe someone saying he likes Scott's music better than REM's because REM doesn't write songs about women makes Scott (or the writer) into some kind of spokesperson for Homophobia Nation. If that group were to adopt one of Scott's songs into an anthem, then I would be more upset. I interpreted his comments as somewhat tongue-in-cheek and part of his overall over-the-top writing style. Yes, I know that kind of thing can do just as much damage as the real deal, but I'm sorry - it made me laugh. I like South Park too. 3) We have to learn to deal with critics who like Scott's music but whom we don't like or don't agree with. I still think spreading the word is more important, even if it's some jerk doing it. It doesn't make us worse people for liking the same thing he does. 4) I just liked the way he so enthusiastically wrote about the music and the songs and how they made him feel. Who here does not have a similar story to tell like his one about Nothing New? It made me feel an emotional connection. That makes me forgive a lot. At Wednesday 1/22/2003 08:03 AM -0600, you wrote: >And Rog, no one actually complained about Jack's posting the link: Jack >pre-emptively apologized, and you react as if people were putting him down >for having posted it - which no one had done. Jack's post was just the most conveniently local one for me to reply to with my tirade. I didn't mean to take it out on Jack, and was actually trying to defend him. Sorry if that didn't come across right, Jack. >And surely you're not >complaining because people disagreed w/some of what Harrington said, are you? Not at all. I just think there's a forest for the trees thing involved here. And I enjoy the debate. You know how that goes. Okay, blast away. Latre. --Rog ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 11:09:08 -0500 From: "Aaron Milenski" Subject: [loud-fans] Gilmore Girls On a lighter note, is there anyone else here who watches both Gilmore Girls and 24? If so, were you as freaked as I was to see the wife-killer/child-beater cast in the role of a nice guy? _________________________________________________________________ The new MSN 8: smart spam protection and 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 11:15:22 -0500 (EST) From: Aaron Mandel Subject: Re: [loud-fans] apologies On Wed, 22 Jan 2003, Roger Winston wrote: > 2) I guess I'm just naive, and granted I didn't read the entire list > (did anyone?), but I just don't believe someone saying he likes Scott's > music better than REM's because REM doesn't write songs about women > makes Scott (or the writer) into some kind of spokesperson for > Homophobia Nation. I read the whole 25-album section linked to, though I admit my eyes glazed over when it came to several records I hadn't heard. Not sure what you mean by "Homophobia Nation" -- who cares what he's a spokesperson for? He's pushing a repulsive line of thinking in almost the same way that he's pushing Scott's music, which is why, though this *is* a political issue for me, it doesn't really have to be in this case. He's cheering loudly for something I hate at the same time as he cheers for something I like, and when I combine those into a selfish, idiosyncratic estimation of how Joe Harrington affects the amount and popularity of cool stuff in my world, he comes up negative. > 3) We have to learn to deal with critics who like Scott's music but whom > we don't like or don't agree with. I still think spreading the word is > more important, even if it's some jerk doing it. It doesn't make us > worse people for liking the same thing he does. I don't think anyone is saying "he's a bad person, therefore his opinions are wrong" or trying to deny that Harrington actually likes Scott's music. I have to say, there were lots of obnoxious little bits on this particular topic in Harrington's article, and I picked the one I did for a reason. When someone calls eBay "eGay", it makes me suspect they're a jerk but, you know, I'm not always in the mood to debate the effect of indirect homophobia and so on. If you translate the "eGay" comment it really just means "I don't like eBay". Fine. On the other hand, the comment about Michael Stipe was directly homophobic - -- actually a pretty rare thing in the entertainment press. His point was specifically that queer people are inferior. I'm sure he was trying to be funny, but he also seems to have *meant* it; he expands on his point, and seems to hold the boy-girl aspect of LN's songs up as one of its real virtues. a ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 11:30:13 EST From: JRT456@aol.com Subject: Re: [loud-fans] apologies In a message dated 1/22/03 8:16:12 AM, aaron@eecs.harvard.edu writes: << On the other hand, the comment about Michael Stipe was directly homophobic - -- actually a pretty rare thing in the entertainment press. His point was specifically that queer people are inferior. I'm sure he was trying to be funny, but he also seems to have *meant* it; he expands on his point, and seems to hold the boy-girl aspect of LN's songs up as one of its real virtues. >> Maybe I missed something amongst the huge block of text, but wasn't Harrington simply saying that Miller understood certain culture wars better than Stipe because he's heterosexual? That seems reasonable. If I was more heterosexual, I may very well have a better appreciation for Celine Dion's understanding of things. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 11:24:21 -0500 From: "Aaron Milenski" Subject: Re: [loud-fans] apologies >He's cheering loudly for something I hate at the same time as he >cheers >for something I like, and when I combine those into a selfish, > >idiosyncratic estimation of how Joe Harrington affects the amount and > >popularity of cool stuff in my world, he comes up negative. I agree with this assessment. Aside from the fact that Harrington is a jerk and is pushing a line of thinking that repulses me as well (not just for his homophobia, but also for the annoying rock and roll macho pose implied by the pro-hetero stance. Similar case with Josie Cotton's "Johnny Are You Queer," which I never really saw as homophobic as much as I saw it as a knock on guys who don't try to act like studs), I find it depressing to share a love for something with a guy like him. Thankfully, this list proves that 99% of Scott's fans aren't like this! >When someone calls eBay "eGay", it makes me suspect they're a jerk but, >you know, I'm not always in the mood to debate the effect of indirect >homophobia and so on. If you translate the "eGay" comment it really just >means "I don't like eBay". Fine. I'm willing to go one further here. If someone uses the word as a purposeful insult, that's pretty blatant. The whole issue of Shaq making those stupid mock-Chinese comments about Yao Ming shows a similar kind of, um, double standard. If someone had used a racial term in that way people would go nuts over it. I'm not really sure what my point is here, just that it would have been nice for someone worthy of rerspect wrote something nice about Scott's music, I guess. the other Aaron _________________________________________________________________ Tired of spam? Get advanced junk mail protection with MSN 8. http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 09:37:31 -0800 (PST) From: Robert Toren Subject: Re: [loud-fans] was: apologies, now: 2-Steps gets a second chance Subject: Re: [loud-fans] apologies - - --- Roger Winston wrote: >> Jack, thanks for posting the link. It made my day. >Mine too! >Gil and my evening... based on Harrington's rave, I pulled out 2-Steps From the Middle Ages and gave it a serious listen for the first time in years_ whadya know? it's a great fucking album_ the 'tinny, high end' production that kept this album out of my player sounded just fine (mostly); it's about as far away as possible from the band's live sound_ now i can live with that_ Scott's singing, which used to sound mean-spirited, sounds bitching, angry and rocking_ (clearly, time has healed some of my post-traumatic stress crankiness) what a great batch of songs, good playing, cool keyboard effects_ a bad review could spin my swivel- mounted head, but for the moment, it's cool RT ===== "Monotheistic religion has always brought out the best in us humans; thank you so much for the idea of a vengeful supernatural entity who rewards people in the afterlife! That shit makes a lot of sense!" http://www.mnftiu.cc/mnftiu.cc/war17.html http://www.angrylambie.com Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 17:58:05 GMT From: dana-boy@juno.com Subject: [loud-fans] Joe's albs I wish that Joe had used "rekkids" instead of "albs." Whatever happened to asianamigo, anyway? I thought he was going to be a big star!! BTW, for those who find Joe annoying, please note that he's a contributor to the NY Press, which should explain everything. I'm just impressed that he managed to avoid the phrase "get his head out of his ass." I thought that all Press writers took a blood oath to use that in every piece they write. - --dana ________________________________________________________________ Sign Up for Juno Platinum Internet Access Today Only $9.95 per month! Visit www.juno.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 13:08:15 EST From: JRT456@aol.com Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Joe's albs In a message dated 1/22/03 10:01:53 AM, dana-boy@juno.com writes: << BTW, for those who find Joe annoying, please note that he's a contributor to the NY Press, which should explain everything. I'm just impressed that he managed to avoid the phrase "get his head out of his ass." I thought that all Press writers took a blood oath to use that in every piece they write. >> This is an obvious homophobic jibe at how the NY Press is now owned by a gay newspaper empire. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 12:40:37 -0600 (CST) From: Tim_Pintsch Subject: Re: [loud-fans] apologies MY statement was accusing him of a form of racism by using the term "ALBS" so loosely. The only other place I ever heard it used frequently was a jazz recordshop on the west side my a very studious man of music. His coworkers used it a whole lot too. In the context of this, it leaves the impression that not only is this man homophobic, but racist too. I do not blame the poster of the link, I do not blame anyone on this list, for indeed it is on topic and any publicity for our scott is good... I just wish it could come from someone with less questionable morals (The writer of the list not the passer of the link). I am insulted, but not by anyone reading this. Be well, tim. On Wed, 22 Jan 2003, Aaron Milenski wrote: > >He's cheering loudly for something I hate at the same time as he >cheers > >for something I like, and when I combine those into a selfish, > > >idiosyncratic estimation of how Joe Harrington affects the amount and > > >popularity of cool stuff in my world, he comes up negative. > > I agree with this assessment. Aside from the fact that Harrington is a jerk > and is pushing a line of thinking that repulses me as well (not just for his > homophobia, but also for the annoying rock and roll macho pose implied by > the pro-hetero stance. Similar case with Josie Cotton's "Johnny Are You > Queer," which I never really saw as homophobic as much as I saw it as a > knock on guys who don't try to act like studs), I find it depressing to > share a love for something with a guy like him. Thankfully, this list > proves that 99% of Scott's fans aren't like this! > > >When someone calls eBay "eGay", it makes me suspect they're a jerk but, > >you know, I'm not always in the mood to debate the effect of indirect > >homophobia and so on. If you translate the "eGay" comment it really just > >means "I don't like eBay". Fine. > > I'm willing to go one further here. If someone uses the word as a > purposeful insult, that's pretty blatant. The whole issue of Shaq making > those stupid mock-Chinese comments about Yao Ming shows a similar kind of, > um, double standard. If someone had used a racial term in that way people > would go nuts over it. > > I'm not really sure what my point is here, just that it would have been nice > for someone worthy of rerspect wrote something nice about Scott's music, I > guess. > > the other Aaron > > _________________________________________________________________ > Tired of spam? Get advanced junk mail protection with MSN 8. > http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 10:46:29 -0800 From: Steve Holtebeck Subject: [loud-fans] Re: apologies Is this the homophobic comment in question? "But the crucial difference was, whereas all of Miller's songs were about women, all of REM's songs were about...MEN! So, y' know, take that for what it's worth." If it is, I'm not seeing the specific point of queer people being inferior at all. It's a stupid comment, because as far as early REM songs are "about" people, as many songs were about females as males, nor were all Scott's songs about women. So when he says "take that for what it's worth", I'm taking it for naught, which is what it's worth. Harrington's including two GT albums in his top 100, plus many of his other selections (Barbara Manning, Incredible String Band, Greetings From LA) show an obvious debt to Byron Coley and FORCED EXPOSURE, and the writing style is similarly affected. As Joe says himself, "take that for what it's worth". Steve ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 13:54:21 -0500 From: Dan Sallitt Subject: Re: [loud-fans] apologies > On the other hand, the comment about Michael Stipe was directly homophobic > -- actually a pretty rare thing in the entertainment press. His point was > specifically that queer people are inferior. I'm sure he was trying to be > funny, but he also seems to have *meant* it; he expands on his point, and > seems to hold the boy-girl aspect of LN's songs up as one of its real > virtues. Is this the passage in question? "All his (Miller's) songs are about girls, but this was the eighties so he also has some cryptic poking-fun-at-the-culture observations which all add up to heaping dose of eeeeh. Hes not afraid to utilize self-deprecating humor, like the great point in You Drive where he unwittingly walks into a sports bar only to face scorn from the locals: Waaaaah, whats that bah wearing? A flowered shirt? WAAAAAAH! It sums up an awkward moment in the whole cultural clash that wouldnt be matched until the fatties in Abunai unsuspectingly walked into Bennys Pool Hall in Pawtucket, MA to use the phone in the summer of 1998. Needless to say, the locals werent impressed by Joe Turners ponytail etc. Miller understood things like this WAY before anyone else, including Stipe and Company (who he was friends with thanx to the Mitch Easter connection). But the crucial difference was, whereas all of Millers songs were about women, all of REMs songs were aboutMEN! So, y know, take that for what its worth." A search on "Stipe" doesn't turn up anything else on that page, so I presume these are the offending words. I can't easily figure out what is being said. Sounds something like, "Miller makes cryptic poking-fun-at-the-culture observations, like R.E.M., but way before them." And then the comment about men and women, which I cannot connect to what came before - followed by the defensive "Take that for what it's worth," which is an explicit backing away from any overt position. Harrington gives the hostile reader enough ammo here, but I think it's an exaggeration to say that he has proclaimed gays inferior. Possibly he has said that he likes hetero music better, but I can't even tell that for sure. For myself, I found the observation about Scott and R.E.M. intriguing, as I'd never thought of it that way. Then I mentally reviewed both artist's songs, and the observation didn't really hold water, or didn't seem all that important where it did apply. For whatever reason, Stipe is a much more indirect, more emotionally swallowed-up lyric writer than Scott - he wouldn't write about either sex with the heart-on-his-sleeve achiness that Scott sometimes gives us. I went to the well-organized www.remlyrics.com and paged through a few albums' worth of lyrics - there are more feminine than masculine pronouns in Stipe's writing, but one way or another he simply doesn't talk about the passion as much as Scott does. You could argue that that's because he's gay or bi or whatever, but I'm not interested in that kind of gender criticism - it simplifies the complexities of what makes an artist occupy a particular place in his or her own world view. - Dan ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 14:39:36 -0500 (EST) From: Aaron Mandel Subject: Re: [loud-fans] apologies On Wed, 22 Jan 2003, Dan Sallitt wrote: > I went to the well-organized www.remlyrics.com and paged through a few > albums' worth of lyrics - there are more feminine than masculine > pronouns in Stipe's writing, but one way or another he simply doesn't > talk about the passion as much as Scott does. Well, that's another reason I take Harrington's comment as a general slur - -- it's not like Stipe wrote romantic songs that were clearly about men, or that he's ever said he was totally gay (has he?). It sounds more like Stipe's modest but public declarations of bisexuality put him in Harrington's "fag" bin ten years ago and that was that. You're right that the paragraph in question is messy, and Harrington's train of thought could be read several ways. My original interpretation was "Stipe's songs were less insightful because he's gay", but that's dumb enough that I'm open to a better idea... a ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 14:44:07 -0500 From: "Aaron Milenski" Subject: Re: [loud-fans] apologies >You're right that the paragraph in question is messy, and Harrington's >train of thought could be read several ways. My original interpretation >was "Stipe's songs were less insightful because he's gay", but that's dumb >enough that I'm open to a better idea... My interpretation is that he studies at the Chuck Eddy school of "let's write like we're really hip and experimental and if people don't like what we're saying it's because they're not cool enough to understand it." _________________________________________________________________ Tired of spam? Get advanced junk mail protection with MSN 8. http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 11:52:23 -0800 (PST) From: Gil Ray Subject: Re: [loud-fans] apologies > On Wed, 22 Jan 2003, Dan Sallitt wrote: > > > I went to the well-organized www.remlyrics.com and > paged through a few > > albums' worth of lyrics - there are more feminine > than masculine > > pronouns in Stipe's writing, but one way or > another he simply doesn't > > talk about the passion as much as Scott does. Darn. To this day I still don't have much of a clue as to what either of them write about. :) Gil Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 14:57:00 EST From: JRT456@aol.com Subject: Re: [loud-fans] apologies In a message dated 1/22/03 11:40:07 AM, aaron@eecs.harvard.edu writes: << Well, that's another reason I take Harrington's comment as a general slur - -- it's not like Stipe wrote romantic songs that were clearly about men, or that he's ever said he was totally gay (has he?). >> After years of bravely implying that he was some kind of extraterrestrial who could never be defined by an Earthling's primitive sense of sexuality, Stipe finally declared himself to be gay last year. Millions cheered. As for Harrington the Homophobe (who, incidentally, I've never met): At a glance, it seems at least 6 of his 100 favorite albums were recorded by gay or bisexual artists. Maybe someone here could really ruin his day by informing him of this shocking news. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 11:58:59 -0800 (PST) From: Gil Ray Subject: Re: [loud-fans] apologies - --- Tim_Pintsch wrote: > I just wish it could come from someone with less > questionable morals Call me old fashioned, but holding up rock critics (or even rock musicians)as some sort of role model is a wee bit disturbing. Critics are here to write and fire us up and musicians are here to try to do the same thing. Nothing more, nothing less. If either turns out to be a perfect person, that's icing on the cake. Gil Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 14:07:20 -0600 (CST) From: Tim_Pintsch Subject: Re: [loud-fans] apologies Gil, I am not looking for perfect by far. People are people. I'm looking for less slurs and less hatred from a member of the press. I'm all about freedom of speech, but there's also freedom from the speech, or, I do not have to listen to or read his spew ;-) The only thing I ask of people I listen too is don't spread hatred and don't kill people. We can never completely pick our poisons, reading or listening completely and this is not always a bad thing, I just wish I had never read this. And so now I sit on a list of kindreds whining about something none of us can control, because I can. And Gil, yeah you're old fashioned, but we love you... ;-) Be well, tim. On Wed, 22 Jan 2003, Gil Ray wrote: > > --- Tim_Pintsch wrote: > > > I just wish it could come from someone with less > > questionable morals > > Call me old fashioned, but holding up rock critics (or > even rock musicians)as some sort of role model is a > wee bit disturbing. Critics are here to write and fire > us up and musicians are here to try to do the same > thing. Nothing more, nothing less. If either turns out > to be a perfect person, that's icing on the cake. > Gil > Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. > http://mailplus.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 15:07:21 -0500 From: Dan Sallitt Subject: Re: [loud-fans] apologies >> You're right that the paragraph in question is messy, and Harrington's >> train of thought could be read several ways. My original interpretation >> was "Stipe's songs were less insightful because he's gay", but that's >> dumb >> enough that I'm open to a better idea... > > My interpretation is that he studies at the Chuck Eddy school of "let's > write like we're really hip and experimental and if people don't like > what we're saying it's because they're not cool enough to understand it." Yeah, that's probably what it comes to. The guy took his shot at saying something illuminating--he made an explicit about-women/about-men comparison between Scott and Stipe--and to my mind he missed, and not just because there are as many she's as he's in Stipe's writing. The rest is mere speculation about his motives. My guess is that, for whatever reason, he doesn't like R.E.M. that much (did Scott really precede Stipe in poking fun at 80s culture? I doubt it) and is uninhibited about bringing up sexual issues while discussing them. Probably he likes some other gay-themed bands and would be gentler on them. - Dan ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 15:20:29 -0600 (CST) From: Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey Subject: Re: [loud-fans] apologies On Wed, 22 Jan 2003, Dan Sallitt wrote: > Is this the passage in question? My glosses follow: > "All his (Miller's) songs are about girls, but this was the eighties so > he also has some cryptic poking-fun-at-the-culture observations which > all add up to heaping dose of eeeeh. Because it was the eighties, Miller's songs about girls also poke fun at the culture. (It just is, okay?) This adds up to an undefined personal exclamation which Harrington uses at several points with no consistency, which allows him to claim he's saying anything at all. (i.e., "but 'eeeeh' means 'the postmodern emptying-out of all metanarrative content,' ya dork!") Hes not afraid to utilize > self-deprecating humor, like the great point in You Drive where he > unwittingly walks into a sports bar only to face scorn from the locals: > Waaaaah, whats that bah wearing? A flowered shirt? WAAAAAAH! In the eighties, flowered shirts were not manly wear in sports bars, and those bars' habitues were made nervous by a man wearing such. It is implied that Scott knows this, and glories in his flowered-shirt-wearing self. It sums > up an awkward moment in the whole cultural clash that wouldnt be > matched until the fatties in Abunai unsuspectingly walked into Bennys > Pool Hall in Pawtucket, MA to use the phone in the summer of 1998. > Needless to say, the locals werent impressed by Joe Turners ponytail > etc. Harrington positions himself as a hipster insider who can describe and name individual members of relatively obscure psych bands (I suspect he used "Joe Turner" so the unwary and unhip might think, "the R&B singer?!?"), even to the extent of tracking their activities by specific date and location. (So he's an Abunai stalker, is he?) Is the cultural clash between floral-shirt wearers and sports-bar denizens? I missed that key moment of eighties pop culture, which apparently Scott is cryptically but self-deprecatingly poking fun at. Miller understood things like this WAY before anyone else, > including Stipe and Company (who he was friends with thanx to the Mitch > Easter connection). Harrington again points out that he reads liner notes. Even though GT's and REM's careers are very nearly contemporary, for no explained reason he claims Scott has the greater insight (into the floral shirt vs. sports bar wars of the eighties, presumably). But the crucial difference was, whereas all of > Millers songs were about women, all of REMs songs were aboutMEN! So, > y know, take that for what its worth." I think this might be an example of the Queen Bitch Theorem: never assume that feminine pronouns necessarily refer to biological females, or vice versa. See, obviously Harrington too perused the REM lyric archives and cunningly decoded all those feminine pronouns. Either that, or he's an idiot. I've never seen Michael Stipe in a flowered shirt. Then, I've never seen him in a sports bar either. But Scott Miller does play tennis, and "played a lot of baseball in [his] youth" - so the discord has all the more frisson doncha see! > I can't easily figure out what is being said. And obviously, neither can I. I'll agree with the "I'm pretending to be all amped up on speed being a hipster Bangsian rock crit banging anyway on an old Underwood" theory. Y'know, with all this brouhaha pro- and anti-Harrington (or whatever meta you wanna make it), I should observe that, irritations aside, I enjoyed reading his rants, and I do agree with Rog that it takes "balls" (you did that on purpose, dincha...) to - after raving about noise and edge and macho etc. etc. - name Steely Fucking Dan your number one album. I mean, I would've expected the MC5, or Iggy, or some noisy free-jazz cat after that. Steely Dan's _Katy Lied_! A record featuring MICHAEL McDONALD!! That alone would get Harrington expelled assward from any number of self-accredited colleges of cool. (PS: I like that album a lot, too - not no. 1, but a very fine record.) - --Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey J e f f r e y N o r m a n The Architectural Dance Society www.uwm.edu/~jenor/ADS.html ::No man is an island. ::But if you take a bunch of dead guys and tie 'em together, ::they make a pretty good raft. __Max Cannon__ np: Frank Zappa _Apostrophe'_ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 15:23:26 -0600 (CST) From: Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Gilmore Girls On Wed, 22 Jan 2003, Aaron Milenski wrote: > On a lighter note, is there anyone else here who watches both Gilmore Girls > and 24? If so, were you as freaked as I was to see the > wife-killer/child-beater cast in the role of a nice guy? I didn't notice at first...but I was thinking, "no way - you can't trust this guy." When I did figure it out, I knew why I thought that. Rose noticed it instantly. (I liked the out-of-nowhere "it's the X-Files at Clinton" parking garage scene...) ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 16:30:15 -0500 From: Chris Murtland Subject: Re: [loud-fans] apologies T> The only thing I ask of people I T> listen too is don't spread hatred and don't kill people. Begin Post In Which I Start With A Pointe, However Muddled, But THen with Haste Enter Manic phase, Cause of Which Being Sleep Deprivation and LinguiStic Ennui. But it's okay for them to steal all your money or lie or drive while intoxicated or end a sentence with a preposition? What about all the things it's impossible to know about someone's private life? If we found the perfect review, full of warm regard for everyone and masterful discernment of the intricacies of trends in popular music, that doesn't mean the reviewer does or doesn't beat his or her kids at home. I'm not defending or prosecuting anything about the reviewer in question (I didn't read the review) or anyone who has posted about it, and I'm not saying people offended have to excuse something that offends them; it just seems an exercise in futility to attempt to judge someone morally based on their public interactions. And I will fight to the...well, not death, but perhaps right up until the point of impending bodily injury to myself, for the right of Joeorjill Reviewer to say what heshe says and Joeorjill Loud-Fan to say what shehe says. However, all the voluminous speech cranked out throughout history hasn't changed human nature much. Is anyone above reproach? But I may have forgotten what list I'm posting to (PREPOSITION ENDS SENTENCE - obviously I am a fascist corporate scumbag with no regard for human life or the rainforest or the feelings of any creature other than myself and it is quite clear that I do not appreciate the nuance of emotion evoked by using the Rat instead of the Tube Screamer or Marshall rather than Fender; in addition, I have no authority to make these claims because I do not have an employer or the proper zip code and my collection has not been verified and by all accounts have not even read Proust yet). The more interesting result of the topic for ME was that it made me think about the differences between Scott and Stipe. I won a stare-off with Stipe once. It was nice to contemplate the two music-people for a few moments. I think the Murmur album art is one reason why I have never lived in City. When you are eight, they should teach you not to trust your fourteen-year-old self, as your thirty-two-year-old self will regret many of the false connections your fourteen-year-old mind made that subsequently socialized you in a certain way based on someone else's experience of stories you did not experience and aesthetic variables totally derived from their insular emotional life that you have no access to as a result of being a separate human being. A second benefit of hard disk space assigned to loud-fan discussion is that it every so often prompts me, like an enzyme, to say something (meaningless as it is; motives hidden if possible) every few months after not saying anything to anyone at all in any area of life, save for transactional language that is already in a context of motive-understood-prior-to-speaking. I can say what I want to say Still I know you're going to suspect All my reasons for speaking up Long before the words have effect It's so much more attractive inside the moral kiosk If anyone wants to be a freak, all they have to do is look inside. Everyone has the potential. You can be free. Give me money, I will lead the way. In my ongoing effort to reduce all human experience to just a few paragraphs (or perhaps one day a single glyph), I will share what I have come up with as the Prototypical Record Review: "Just put on Interbabe Concern or Lolita Nation. They are great records!" That's really the only record review you will ever need. Unfortunately for those who never made the connection that Mark Staples=Michael Stipe=My Self, ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 22:19:15 GMT From: dana-boy@juno.com Subject: Re: [loud-fans] apologies Y'know, with all this brouhaha pro- and anti-Harrington (or whatever meta you wanna make it), I should observe that, irritations aside, I enjoyed reading his rants, and I do agree with Rog that it takes "balls" (you did that on purpose, dincha...) to - after raving about noise and edge and macho etc. etc. - name Steely Fucking Dan your number one album. I mean, I would've expected the MC5, or Iggy, or some noisy free-jazz cat after that. Steely Dan's _Katy Lied_! A record featuring MICHAEL McDONALD!! That alone would get Harrington expelled assward from any number of self-accredited colleges of cool. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> I don't really see that choice as all that original, since Christgau was also a huge Steely Dan fan, while liking the same sort of noisy stuff that Joe does. Also, nothing's cooler than having a surprise #1 album. Does everyone know about all these great Alice Coltrane albums that got reissued last year? I've been picking them up one by one (after eMusic got me started) and they're so wonderful: very nice for the casual jazz fan (and I'm barely even that at this point). Allmusic tells the story better than I could. - --dana ________________________________________________________________ Sign Up for Juno Platinum Internet Access Today Only $9.95 per month! Visit www.juno.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 17:35:31 -0500 From: Stewart Mason Subject: [loud-fans] Re: Alice and Pharoah At 10:19 PM 1/22/2003 GMT, dana-boy@juno.com wrote: >Does everyone know about all these great Alice Coltrane albums that got >reissued last year? I've been picking them up one by one (after eMusic >got me started) and they're so wonderful: very nice for the casual jazz >fan (and I'm barely even that at this point). eMusic also has a few by Alice's partner Pharoah Sanders, including the agreeably wild PHAROAH'S FIRST, his debut album on the usually-worthwhile ESP-Disk label. (Worthwhile for jazz and folk, that is -- other than the Fugs, their rock stuff is usually pretty overrated. The Godz were okay, but they were *not* as cool as Lester claimed.) S ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 17:47:29 EST From: LeftyZ@aol.com Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Gilmore Girls In a message dated 1/22/03 1:24:09 PM, jenor@uwm.edu writes: << (I liked the out-of-nowhere "it's the X-Files at Clinton" parking garage scene...) >> I thought two or three scenes last night were among the best from this season. In addition to the one Jeff mentions, which reminded me somehow of "All the President's Men"..... The scene with Mom Gilmore reading the excerpts from the deposition was hilarious. The fencing scene was priceless. I even liked the scene outside the seminar with Suki and the old friend. There were others I'm forgetting already. (No Jess was nice too.) All in all, one of the strongest episodes of the season. Left ------------------------------ End of loud-fans-digest V3 #21 ******************************